Urgent Investigation by the Kenyan Government Required of Limkowking University

The Kenyan government has been involved in a lot of deals that have gone bad, and we have been left with a disappointing endless list of Commissions of Inquiry/Tribunals burdening the tax payer.

My intention to write this article is not to condemn my government, but to warn of a mistake/scandal that is about to happen (LIMKOKWING UNIVERISTY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY, MALAYSIA). I am an alumnus and also an ex-staff of Limkowking university; I joined this University while it was still an institution 12 years ago until it gained its university through its bribes to government officials. This article is a request to the Kenyan government to investigate this University before it lowers the education credibility we have in Kenya like it has in Southern African countries ( Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland).

The information provided here is both from experience and from information collated from different Media.

Note: Limkowing officials already met with Kenyan Prime Minister Hon Raila Odinga and vice President Hon Kalonzo Musyoka separately mid this year to broker a deal.

FACTS ABOUT LIMKOKWING:

• Limkokwingl entices influential African leaders with cheap Honorary doctorate as a way to gain their leverage in the country. History is about to repeat itself in Kenya;  Honorable Prime Minister Raila Odinga is about to take the bold step that  his African  leader took year back , he is scheduled to be in Malaysia the second week of November to receive an Honorary Doctorate award  for his effort to fight unity in Kenya, this award ceremony will be held  on 17 November 2012 at Limkokwing university, Malaysia.
• 90% of Limkowking Lecturers /employees are ex students, this tells you much about the circle the university maintains.
• The university has the highest  turnover of lecturers’ in record.
• Investigate how the founder attained his doctorate and professorship, he is a businessman not academician.
• All international students who studied Business and IT course and graduated before 2010 their degrees are not recognized as, Limkowing did not have full accreditation to offer this programmes to international students.
• We have more than 50 Kenyan students who graduated from this university , please interview  them and you will be shocked what you discover.
• I am a graduate of this university; I applied for my master degree in US, UK and Australia and they rejected my application as they did not recognize Limkokwing University programmes.
• Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland campuses were started through persuading influential leaders that their countries needed global education – and Limkokwing should be the answer. Once the leaders agree they are honored with doctorate degrees and the documentation was prepared hurriedly and the university popped up within 6months of first meeting. NB: If you follow though the write up below you’ll notice the Ministries of Education were not involved in the decision making.

I truly believe that these countries seriously need an Education Forum, where educationists would come up with sustainable solutions to problems in Education / foreign investors wanting to run their own universities. This basis of deliberations in such a Forum should be how best they may improve on the current Education system for the attainment of the country’s vision before running to signup deals with foreign investors.

SOME OF LIMKOWING's DEMANDS BEFORE THEY OPEN A CAMPUS IN KENYA:

• Have corporate tax exclusion.
• Bring their own expertise / manpower ( incompetent lecturers to run the university) NB: Senior management will mostly come from Malaysia as Dato Limkokwing does not trust Africans yet he is investing in our country.
• Kenyan government to provide scholarships for the first students to join the university.
• Lim Kok Wing to import tax free office furniture, few fancy computers, lots of marketing banners and announced that he is ready to start a university.
• Control salary structure for its employees and not follow the Ministry of Labour guidelines.
• Rent a building most probably in Westlands and turn it into a university

This list of demand is long. I would highly recommend you do a research on this.

BOTSWANA CAMPUS
The former Botswana Government under the leadership of Honorable Festus Mogae had been under investigation before his term ended. He accepted an Honorary doctorate from Limkokwing and decided to sell his own country to the Chinese man in the name of bringing global education and 21^st century degrees to the country.

When probing of the university,  Ministry of Education officials came under scrutiny; all those who took part in the decision making in the number of scholarships it gave the university were all suspended from their posts including the education attache’ who was in charge in Malaysia. Mr. Kalane was recalled from his duties. The rest of the scandals/ corruption can all be found on the internet or contact the education board that investigates corruption to confirm the information provided here.

Limkokwing, Botswana campus has had a number of strikes from the staff down to students, which have resulted to almost one week of no operations at the university.

Facts

• The rapid growth of Limkokwing has caused critics to suggest that former Botswana president Festus Mogae and Education Minister Jacob Nkate have personal interests in Limkokwing – an allegation both have denied.
• Of the 177 staff hired by the university this year, 133 are teaching and of these 24 have masters and 109 ‘junior degrees’. With 6,000 students it has a staff-student ratio of 1 to 45 – more like the ratio expected in a secondary institution rather than a university.
• The average investment by the government in tuition fees and cost of living allowances for a Limkokwing student is US$8,000 per year or P243.6 million for 4,700 students.

LESOTHO
Before Limkokwing was imported in Lesotho they did not have an independent statutory body responsible for advising the Minister of Higher Education and Training on all higher education policy issues, and for quality assurance in higher education to investigate or research if those skills/courses Limkokwing claims to offer are in Lesotho’s interest.

Lesotho's Prime Minster knew he would be resigning without a doctorate so he had to invite Limkokwing and they made a deal – Doctorate vs profits.

It has been  three years since Lesotho imported Limkokwing University from Malaysia, purportedly to educate Basotho people. Yet in that short time Limkokwing has hurriedly climbed up the ladder of mediocrity to become one fat excuse of a university.

Leaders of the Lesotho government are not a bunch of fools as some would like to argue they knew Limkokwing University was never going to benefit the country; in fact it was never intended to be of service to the nation. From the onset, this sounded like a business deal between Limkokwing and certain individuals within the government.

Due to a lot of public unrest, on 11 September, 2012 the council of Higher Education – Lesotho called for an investigation to be conducted of programmes offered at the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) to determine levels of qualifications.

One question that Basotho people ask themselves, an ex Limkokwing student just like me warned the government prior to the Prime Minister getting trapped with this dubious Honorary Doctorate, they turned a blind eye warning as well  as Limkokwing strikes/scandals that are happening in  the neighboring country Botswana.

Tax payers’ instead of being used to advance the local university will used  to fund the commission of inquiry investigating the university.

Limkokwing's story brings tears to my eyes. It’s another masterpiece of this magical triangle of incompetence, ignorance and corruption that characterizes too many of our political deciders. This poor country needed to invest on its future development..

Facts

• Ministry of Education Lesotho has one of the lowest reputations within the international donor community.
• Limkokwing Lesotho has an annual turnover of about M125 million, making it perhaps the most lucrative business venture in this country.
• Limkokwing pays lecturers pittances, rents government buildings for a song and spends as little as possible on educating the students.
• Limkokwing cannot understand how he got a whole government to bankroll a private company without asking questions.
• Limkokwing can toss champagne for he is probably the only businessman who ventured in  Lesotho, invested nothing substantial and started making millions a few weeks later.
• Limkokwing is a de facto profit organisation; it does not pay corporate tax.
• In a decade Lesotho’s taxpayers would have funded a private university to become a multi-billion maloti empire.
• Limkowing offers degrees with high sounding names but very little substance. Perhaps the biggest fraud at the college is what it calls Associate Degrees. What is an associate degree, you may ask?
• We can postulate all we want but the bottom line is that Limkokwing was doomed from the onset because it lacks the legitimacy to exist in the first place.
• It was parachuted into this country without due diligence of its structure, funding model and the quality of education it offers. The government never assessed its curriculum to verify what its worth to this country is. A due diligence would have discovered that Limkokwing is a “Pty” seeking profits and nothing else.
• Limkowing's  mantra about innovative education is just a cover for a scheme to siphon money out of poor countries desperate to educate their people.
• In terms of equivalency, an Associate Degree award is equivalent to 1.5 years of university’s undergraduate programmes,” the university says. In other words an Associate Degree is not even anywhere near a junior degree at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). It is not even equivalent to a second-year of a junior NUL degree.
• Take Limkokwing Associate Degree to any proper university and they will laugh at you out of the admissions office.
• With the M125 million Limkowing is  shipping out to Malaysia every year, Lesotho could have built a state-of-the-art university in the next three years.

SWAZILAND
Dato Lim Kok Wing had a meeting with King Mswati and ‘persuaded’ him that Swaziland needed a new university – and Limkokwing should be it. The king fell for it: hook, line and sinker. King Mswati is Chancellor of the University of Swaziland, so you would have supposed that if he had ideas for expanding tertiary education in the kingdom he rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, he would have used that route. Instead, the king passed on his wishes to government that Limkokwing should be supported and behold, no matter how daft the proposition, it had to find the money to make it work.

As it is, Tan Sri Dato Lim Kok Wing managed to fool the king into believing that substandard courses in such subjects as Packaging Design & Technology, Accessories Design, Games Design and Event Management would help Swaziland – a mainly agricultural society - to prosper.

Swaziland Government is wasting E16 million (US$2 million) of Swazi people’s money per year on the bogus Limkokwing University - all because it was King Mswati III’s idea.

The only one prospering is Tan Sri Dato Lim Kok Wing who is banking millions a year that could be better spent supporting proper projects that would contribute to development in the kingdom, where seven in ten people live in abject poverty.

Facts

• It is impossible to imagine a business model as simple and risk-free like that of Limkokwing. Firstly, its income is guaranteed and paid upfront by the government.
• Secondly, it can ship out the money to Malaysia without many questions from the powers-that-be.
• Thirdly, it has no need to invest much in infrastructure because the government , in its hurry to be seen as progressive, gave it offices for which they pay pittances for rentals.
• Fourthly, nobody in government can test the quality of the degrees Limkokwing is offering and it’s not under any obligation to prove that it’s not a degree mill.
• And lastly, the government, which is the main funder of the students, seems to have sworn that it will continue to bankroll the college, come what may. Limkokwing is probably the only company that does not need to prove that its products are up to standard.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

• The good “Dr” Limkokwing can write about innovation, accumulate zillions of honorary doctorates, claim to be the “father of innovation”, dazzle the government with his charm and thank some of them with high-sounding titles but that won’t answer the grave questions people have about his institution and products. A university’s foundation must be based on education and research and not branding.
• Research / investigate Limkokwing's legitimacy.
• If the government decides to go ahead and allow Limkokwing to open a mini-campus in Kenya, it needs to control the number of expatriates that will be employed in the university and education qualifications of the lecturers its bring on board.
• Vision 2030 is very clear on what sort of skills this country needs in order to meet its developmental needs but what is more lacking is operationlization of both the vision 2030 as well as the other National development frameworks that have been developed in this country.
• Secondly, it is critical that for the development of Kenya to stop investing our hard earned taxes on foreign initiatives but wiser to invest in upgrading the existing Educational Institutions to attain our development goals.
• While on the other hand, we need to replace the unresponsive governments with those that would be more responsive to the development needs of Kenya. For more than 49 years now, this country has been focusing on power politics at the expense of our development needs and this needs to be stopped!

Thank you for your time, I love my country and as a law abiding citizen, I thought it would be best to bring this to your attention forward as my tax will be funding the Limkokwing/Government project including an inquiry that will be required after 1 year of its establishment once the public becomes aware of the motives of the university.

Yours Sincerely,
Mkenya Halisi.

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